Salon Marketing Opportunities To Avail Of This Coming March

It finally feels like Spring has arrived – the longer, milder, brighter days are here! As well as that, quite a few salon marketing opportunities are fast approaching so now is the perfect time to put your thinking hat on and come up with a few campaigns to promote your business.

Spring Has Sprung, And So Have These Fantastic Salon Marketing Opportunities!

Whether it be for promotions or exclusive packages, days like Mother’s Day and Easter often rhyme with retail and vouchers. And well, in a competitive market like the hair and beauty industry, visual merchandising is key. This month, find the time to give your retail display a little makeover (a spring clean never hurts anyway!). Focus on the small things that make a significant impact; like lighting. Did you know that one easy way of getting your clients to notice your retail products is to ensure they’re well lit? Then, of course, you also have five techniques used in retail stores which can easily apply to your salon. Find out more about that here.

Mother’s Day (UK, Ireland) | March 11, 2018

Although we might have covered many angles for Mother’s Day in the past, there’s always room for new ideas.

Create a gift guide

Imagine how hard it is to buy for the mom who had everything. Gift guides are great for any major holiday because they answer the dreadful “What should I buy for….?” question before it even arises. Email a gift guide out or get one designed and printed out that you hand out to your clients leading up to Mother’s Day.

Hand out a gift to moms

This is an amazing opportunity to make mothers feel great while working on your relationship with your sales rep and testing new products. Cost-effective, all you have to do is reach out to your retail brand’s sales representative and see if you could get samples for a new line of products you’d like to try for your salon or spa. Then, perhaps delegate this task to someone on your team, but package them up and tie a cute appreciation note to the packaging. You can hand them out to mothers on the day, or even go to your local shopping centre and distribute them there, raising brand awareness for your salon simultaneously.

Host an event

What about hosting a self-love/pampering night in your salon dedicated to mothers? Make sure you promote it well enough so that it drives new clients through your doors and let your guests leave with a small goodie bag to increase your chances of creating a buzz and generating word of mouth referrals.

Create a user-generated campaign on social media

The world has gone digital, and that’s something you can take advantage of if you don’t have the time or resources to host an event in your salon. Get potential and existing clients to share their favourite photo with their mom, their funniest mom story, or the best advice their mother ever gave them. Create a unique hashtag for your campaign and encourage users to tag you in their posts using both your social media handle and the hashtag. And once it’s launched, don’t forget to engage with the content you’re tagged in! If you wanted, you could even incentivise participation by turning the campaign into a contest for the best mom-related posts and give a few prizes (complimentary treatment, voucher, etc.).

Raise money for disadvantaged mothers

If you want, you could also take advantage of the day to help mothers in need. Donate a portion of your sales on Mother’s Day or organise a food or clothes collect that you can bring to a local charity or non-profit that works with disadvantaged, abused or homeless mothers. If you use Phorest Salon Software, you could even create a few free charity vouchers and add them to the collection of food and clothing.

Saint-Patrick’s Day | March 17, 2018

Paddy’s Day, although greatly associated with drinks and celebrations, doesn’t have to be exclusively about that! There are quite a few other salon marketing opportunities that could do the trick.

Treat Your Clients To An Irish Coffee

If you do want to add a bit of spark to your clients’ day, then you could treat them to an Irish coffee special to accompany their treatment. You can read more about adding alcohol to your salon’s drinks menu here, as you might need to get a license.

Go Green

No need to ask your customers to come in dressed in green this year! Why not do something green instead? There are plenty of charities and non-profits looking for help (hands-on & donations) in raising awareness about wildlife and habitat conservation. In Ireland, for instance, I’m thinking of the Irish Wildlife Trust. Take Paddy’s Day as an opportunity to either raise money with your clients or go on a team building activity that does some good for the environment.

Pot Of Gold Promotion

The first time he was on the Phorest FM podcast with us, salon coach and educator David Barnett discussed Christmas retail opportunities. Taking inspiration from that, why not create a pot of gold inspired wheel-of-fortune for your clients who spend xyz amount in your salon that day? If you number the sections on the spin-o-wheel, then you could create a list of prizes with different worths based on bill spend. So for each numbered section, you’d have three different prizes options.

For instance, people who spend$/£/€ 50 get level 1 prizes. Clients who spend $/£/€50-100 get level 2 prizes & and those who spend $/£/€ 100 and up get access to level 3 prizes. That way, you’re not giving away a massive prize to someone who’s only spent $/£/€ 15 in your salon or spa that day (you still need to be careful not to undermine your prices).

Hold A Paddy’s Day Trivia Quiz

Another option is to hold a trivia quiz on Saint-Patrick’s Day knowledge through social media and draw daily prizes throughout the week leading to March 17th.

Easter | March 30 to April 2, 2018

Sponsor An Easter Event

If you’re too busy and don’t have the time or the resources to host an event yourself, why not take the opportunity to sponsor a local Easter event instead? It’s a simple way to get your salon or spa’s name out there without taking on the stress of organising the whole thing. The only thing you would need to do is to provide flyers or vouchers for small complimentary treatments or a product sample goodie bag when people spend x amount in your salon.

Reward Your Most Loyal Clients

When it comes to your top referral or loyal customers, a little attention can go a long way. Find out who those people are in your salon and send them a sweet note with 1 or 2 product samples in the mail. Thank them for their trust and invite them to book back in at their convenience (promote your online booking link or your salon app)! If you use Phorest Salon Software but don’t have an app, have a look at what we offer here!

Easter Self-Care Baskets

One guaranteed way to sell more retail is by creating grab-and-go packages or baskets. Because it’s Easter, throw in a few mini-eggs or creme eggs and voilà! Your job is done.

Create Special Easter Treatment Packages

A classic for most big holidays. Combine treatments and services for a special Easter promotion in your salon or spa. Market it as “limited availability” rather than “limited time only” – the fact it’s an Easter special already implies that it’s a limited time only promotion. Spread the good news in the weeks coming to Easter on social media, in the salon when clients go to rebook and via your email newsletters as well.

Count The Eggs Social Media Contest

Sometimes it’s tough to come with creative contest ideas. Why not keep it simple this time around? Buy a few packs of mini eggs, 1-3 mason jars, and pour the eggs into each pot (count how many you put in!!!!). Then, take a photo of each jar and post it on social media. Ask people to guess how many eggs are in the mason jar and give it away along with a complimentary treatment of your choosing to the person who got the closest guess! Simple, but guaranteed to generate engagement.

Are you a Phorest Salon Software client? We’ve already uploaded two March Newsletter email templates to your system to help you avail of all these salon marketing opportunities. Feel free to adapt them to your needs!

For Salons Based In The EU… Start Thinking About Getting GDPR Ready!

By May 2018, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) it is going to be mandatory for EU-based salons to collect, house and protect your clients’ personal data and information securely, but also, to be the utmost transparent about how you obtained it. You will be required to provide a clear audit trail as to how you collected it. Failure to comply with this legislative requirement could cost your business thousands – or worse; you could lose your business altogether.

To get more information on GDPR or to talk with an advisor about a GDPR compliant salon software solution, visit www.salongdpr.com today!

Got feedback on these salon marketing opportunities? Let us know either in the comments below or tweet us @ThePhorestWord! (Pssst! We’re on Instagram too!)